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Challenges in Spitsbergen Marathon go beyond distance
Snow, rough surfaces and just getting to the start line make finishing the race a primary goal

Twenty-eight runners begin their 42.2-km journey through the mostly gravel streets of Longyearbyen during the 15th annual Spitsbergen Marathon on June 6. A total of 120 runners particiapted in full, half and 10K races. (Race site and results)

• Women's winner: Marathon at 78°N a tough act to follow

Running a marathon ought to be achievement enough. Especially when challenges like a lengthy trip to the end of the Earth, snow in June and rifle-clad race officials on ATVs watching for polar bears are added.

So it seems unfair mentioning some completing this year's Spitsbergen Marathon didn't achieve their goal after all.

"I wanted to run the northernmost," said Gieseler Norbert, a Berlin resident in his 40s running his 32nd marathon.

Actually, that'd be the North Pole Marathon, whose participants passed through here in April on their way to a race ending at 90 degrees north and a temperature of -37C. They also paid an entry fee of 120,000 NOK, which didn't include travel arrangements to Longyearbyen.

The 28 people completing the 15th annual Spitsbergen Marathon on June 6 paid a mere 400 NOK to run most of the major roads in town – twice – and the misunderstanding was excusable given everything else northernmost Svalbard lays claim to. Most of the runners were foreigners looking above all for an exotic and unusual experience, which they certainly felt they got.

"It's summer and it's snowing," Norbert said. "That's a big difference."

The cold and lack of a crowd were a plus for Norbert, who said his main goal was simply finishing the race. Doing so in less than five hours would be nice, even if that didn't approach his personal best of 3:43.

Final time: 5:19:27. But that was without any training runs during his four days here and he was hardly the only one with an optimistic time goal on mostly gravel roads.

Aleksey Shestov, who came from Russia's Saratov region to get his PhD in ice mechanics at The University Centre In Svalbard, said he hoped to complete the 42.2-km course in 3:15. His longest training run on the course was 30 km and he expected the biggest challenge to be "the first 30 minutes and the last hour." He finished in 3:38:19, sixth in the 18-39 age category.

The overall winner was Per Hviid, a member of the Fokus Bank Road Runners, with a time of 3:09:29. The women's winner was Lori Osmundsen of Portland, Ore., in 4:30:08. She said just running the race was an unexpected development – to say nothing of winning it.

"I ran a marathon in my family's town of Norway (Mandal) and I met a journalist who said 'You like to run exotic marathons? Have I got one for you,'" she said. "I said 'Really? That's my next project' – and he printed it."

The winner of the 60 runners in the half marathon were Simon Løvås at 1:25:25 and Anja Kristiansen Meyer 1:52:58. The winner among the 32 runners in the 10K race were Johannes Abildsnes at 43:09 and Anne-Mette Berg at 49:58.

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